Review by Booklist Review
Boyd follows the nineteenth-century setting of The Romantic (2022) with changes not only in setting but also genre in this Cold War spy thriller situated in the early 1960s. Gabriel Dax was orphaned as a child in tragic circumstances and continues to be haunted by vague memories now that he is a successful travel writer living in London. On a visit to the People's Republic of the Congo, he is offered a chance to interview then-leader Patrice Lumumba; this fateful opportunity drags Gabriel into a multilayered conspiracy that keeps the reader guessing. The puppet master of Gabriel's life is Faith Green, a wonderfully competent British secret service agent who sends Gabriel across Europe, from Spain to Poland, to assist in her designs. Meanwhile, Gabriel is also trying to understand his insomnia and complete his latest book on rivers, and nearly every page features him drinking alcohol. Boyd's careful plotting never allows Gabriel to feel he knows the entire story, and the narrative builds to a satisfying conclusion in this espionage tale focusing on a delightfully reluctant protagonist who is all but forced into a dense international caper of secrets and intrigue.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Boyd's latest (after The Romantic) is an electric espionage thriller that calls to mind the best of John le Carré and Len Deighton. As a child, Gabriel Dax was caught in a house fire that killed his mother, and insomnia-inducing nightmares of the tragedy have followed him into adulthood. By 1960, Gabriel has become a travel writer who, through a stroke of good luck, is assigned to interview Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo. Shortly after their conversation, Lumumba is overthrown by a Congolese colonel, and though Gabriel's editor tells him the tapes are "yesterday's news," unknown parties are bent on acquiring them. First, a mysterious woman bumps into Gabriel at a pub and inquires about the tapes before introducing herself as MI6 agent Faith Green. Then she asks him to deliver a drawing to someone in Spain as a "small favour" for the agency. Though Gabriel is reluctant to court trouble, he's smitten with Faith, so he eventually agrees. Soon, he's taking on ever-more-intricate missions for Faith, unaware he's been tapped to work for MI6 full-time--in part because of his valuable interview with Lumumba, and in part because of slow-to-emerge secrets from his family's past. Boyd's prose is crisp, his dialogue zings, and the heaps of dramatic irony he places on Gabriel's stumble into spyhood buoys the narrative rather than weighing it down. Readers will hope to hear more from Gabriel soon. Agent: Gráinne Fox, UTA. (Dec.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A London-based writer finds himself stuck in the webs of British intelligence. It's 1960 and Gabriel Dax is flying home to England after interviewing Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba when a series of "strange coincidences" begins. He's upgraded to first class and a woman on the plane is reading one of his travel books. Back home he finds someone has left his flat in "careful disarray," and the plane woman appears in his neighborhood. She soon reappears, says she's from MI6, and asks him to "do us a small service." The job goes smoothly except for the woman who plants heroin on Gabriel, which he discovers before the police do, and the CIA man who's interested in the tape recording of the Lumumba interview because it reveals a direct link between the prime minister's subsequent assassination and former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Boyd sets his story not long after news of Guy Burgess and the other Cambridge Five double agents began to emerge. Dealing with such moles becomes a larger theme of the book and provides a nasty twist at the end. In this murky world, Gabriel is a kind of Evelyn Waugh naif caught in a Graham Greene plot, and one of the book's pleasures is his entirely plausible resourcefulness as challenges grow more perilous. While Boyd craftily ramps up the complications for his reluctant spy, he also gives him a full life apart from intelligence errands. He has embarked on a new travel book, about major rivers. He's enjoying great sex with a woman who doesn't seem to demand much more. And he has begun therapy sessions for insomnia and dreams that recall when he was 6 and his house burned down, leaving his mother dead while he barely escaped. Boyd doesn't quite weave all these strands into a neat little package, but it's still a highly entertaining book that can easily bear a few loose ends. An exceptional storyteller in fine form. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
